I had not considered the end

For anyone that knows me better than a little, they know that Ted Kennedy has become something of a arch-enemy to me. As he lay in intensive care and takes in the remaining minutes of the Celtics victory over the Cavs, it is not the time to critique a litany of his faults, sins and bad political ideas. This probably won't be the end for Teddy. For a guy who is eighty pounds overweight, drinks and eats more than two to three normal folk and hasn't let any of that slow down his libido...he has a churchillian-like ability to outlive much healthier men. Even so, age is catching up on the liberal icon and senior senator from Massachusetts.

Around 1971 or 2, I received a letter from Senator Kennedy thanking me for my contribution to an ecology event organized by my school. It was a thrill to receive it and I kept it for many years (I am not sure what happened to it). At the time, I had no knowledge of Chappaquiddick, Abortion (Roe vs. Wade was still a couple years away), his Harvard cheating scandal (et. al.) and I had no prognosticating ability to see this loud-mouthed hypocrite attack the characters of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

When Ted finally passes on, he will be immortalized in a funeral fit for a king. He will be eulogized by Caroline Kennedy, Harry Reid, George McGovern, Sargent Shriver, Mike Dukakis, Jimmy Carter and droves of Republicans, who will commend him on the passion of his ideas and his fighting spirit.

To me, he is just the guy that made it 'okay' for Catholics to be pro-abortion. He was the horsepower for thirty years for the great society - a war on poverty that has left the poor - poorer, unwed and without values. At this point, I still maintain hope that those thousands of rosaries that Rose Kennedy said for her children will take hold and he will become a champion of freedom, life and Catholicism.

In the meantime, we wait and wonder the outcome of this setback for the seventy-six year old senator. And we wonder which Kennedy will slip into his Senate seat for the next thirty years. The people of MA will have it no other way.

Submitted by D. B. Jackson